Thursday, January 22, 2015

Over on BookTube, I've just participated in a huge collaboration project set up by my friend Georgina (BritishBiblioholic) in which a group of us each asked one question to be compiled into a quirky and unique kind of introductory '20 Questions' tag video.

BOOKTUBE= A community within YouTube where people review, talk about, discuss, rant, and obsess over books.

It was immensely fun. Some of these questions are bizarre, some thought-provoking, some truly insightful. (What super power would you choose? Truly? What book title could double as your autobiography?) There some seriously talented and wise people out there.Here are all of my answers, and all of the questions and their posers are listed out below. Feel free to answer any or all! I don't see why this questionaire couldn't hop to the blogosphere, so no video even required. ;)Get those brains working!

Monday, January 12, 2015

I came across a story last week that everyone should see. It details how an adamant protestor in Phoenix, AZ, after calling for the job and badge of a police officer who shot an unarmed man during a traffic stop, was invited to participate in a police officer's use of force training exercise. The protestor, Jarrett Maupin, agreed.

You can watch a video of the exercises in the article, but the gist is that Maupin was placed into the role of a police officer faced with three separate life or death scenarios.

In the first, Maupin did not react fast enough and was 'shot' by the suspicious perpetrator.

The second scenario mirrored the recent incident that Maupin had so fiercely been protesting. The perpetrator rushed on Maupin and, though he did not appear armed, Maupin 'shot' him. When asked, Maupin said he fired because

"...he was in that zone, I felt there was an imminent threat. I didn't necessarily see him armed, but he came clearly to do some harm to [me]. It's hard to make that call. It shakes you up."

He also confessed "I didn't understand how importance compliance was but after going through this, yeah, my attitude has changed. This is all unfolding in 10 to 15 seconds. People need to comply with the orders of law enforcement officers for their own sake."In the third scenario, Maupin managed to subdue the perp though, after a search, discovered a concealed knife in his waistband.I share this story for several reasons, but the most important is how crucial it is to understand what it's like for these police officers. They face real and very serious danger every single day. This is something that most average people like us don't fully comprehend. 58 of the 114 police killed in 2014 were a result of assault.

Maupin was incredibly gutsy to step up to the plate and accept this invitation, to experience what it's really like in the shoes of law enforcement. Too many of the voices crying out are pushing their own opinions and agendas without understanding the positions actually involved. For this reason, I have great admiration for Maupin. Because the most courageous thing he did was admit he did not fully understand the situation and that his opinion is now changed because of it. He sent this tweet after experiencing his scenarios:

People can voice their opinions. This is America and we have been given the freedom of speech. But we also have the duty to use it responsibly. Unlike the old 'sticks and stones' spiel of childhood, words carry great power, especially from the mouths of the ignorant. To quote the immortal words of Stan Lee, "With great power comes great responsibility."People should think a little more before they speak or tweet or update their status, and make an effort to better understand the situation before they add their own fuel to the fire. They could be doing more harm than good.

Don't be ignorant. Be like Maupin. Make the effort to gather the facts past the gossip and the sensationalized news stories.

Read
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the first time w/ newbie
reaction vid

Catch
up on the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy

Finish
one manga series

2015
TBR list -Pick one title a month to read

More
browse selecting. If I see something at the library that looks good,
I'm just going to take it!

Join a book club. I really
want to be part of a book club, but I'm having trouble finding one
that suits me and starting my own didn't work out. At all. (I am so
sorry.) I want to find something that not only reads books I'll
like, but is small enough that we can actually talk to each other,
instead of at each other. Suggestions are welcome.

Most
Anticipated Books of 2015

Firefight by Brandon
Sanderson, Reckoners bk 2 (Jan. 6)

The Magician's Lie by
Greer Macallister (Jan 13)

Fairest and Winter
by Marissa Meyer (Jan 27 & Nov 10, respectively)

Woven by David Powers
King & Michael Jensen (Jan 27)

Dearest by Alethea
Kontis (Feb. 3)

Masterminds by Gordon
Korman (Feb 3)

Princess Academy:
Forgotten Sisters by Shannon Hale (March 3)

Stolen Magic by Gail
Carson Levine (April 21 -expected)

The Forever Man by
Eoin Colfer (June 23)

Of Enemies and Endings
by Shelby Bach. (June 30) The final book of the Ever Afters
series. NOOOOOOOoooooooo! I'm not ready to say goodbye!

Silver in the Blood by
Jessica Day George (July 7) -A new Jessica Day George book?
Historical fantasy? ROMANIA!?

Ninja Librarians: Sword in
the Stacks by Jen Swann Downey (August 1)

2015 Booktube Goals

More interaction. I'm going
to watch more booktube videos and leave comments and basically try
to be social.

More book-to-movie
comparisons. I barely did any of these last year and I am so sorry!
I know that I really enjoy doing these, but I never gave myself
enough time to actually do it. This will change! My big aim is to do
comparisons of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Because yeah.

More FUN videos. I want to
do more tag videos and random bookish things -like book towers or
book games- instead of strictly reviews, because I feel like I'm
only hitting on half of what makes booktubing awesome.

Discussions, reactions, and
fangirling. There's an upside and a downside to doing spoiler-free
reviews and the downside is that I don't get to talk about what I
really loved about a book or how a particular character's
development blew my mind. So while I'm not going to stop giving
spoiler-free reviews, I would like to do more videos where I
actually get to talk about and discuss books. BOOKS!

Monday, January 5, 2015

It's a shiny bright new year, but before I get into my hopes and goals for 2015 (that will be on Thursday), here is my wrap up from the month of December and all those reading goals I set for 2014.

Really, I'm still surprised I managed to read 100+ books last year. I know quite a few graphic novels are responsible for that count, but that's a genre I was hoping to start reading in anyway, so I really consider that a double-score. ;)

Friday, January 2, 2015

Due to some technical difficulties, this post comes a day late. Apologies for that, but better late than never, right?

First of all, I'd like to thank Alethea not only for the ARC of 'Dearest', but for signing so beautifully the books I bought, for sending enough swag to go around, the much-appreciated Princess Bride references, and for being all around awesome. ^_^

The latest
installment of the Woodcutter Sister series deals with Friday, the
sweetest, kindest, and gentlest of the Woodcutter clan. While I have
nothing against Friday, she was never my favorite of the sisters.
Compared to pirate queen Thursday, Wednesday in her black gowns with
her poetry and prophecies, sword-hacking Saturday, and Sunday and her
magic words, Friday with the big heart and the magic needle seemed a
little dull.
I was wrong.

Friday was the
perfect sister for this story because it played right into her
wheelhouse -the need for an open heart and mad sewing skills. She
discovers that the seven swans in the palace pond are only swans by
day. By night, they are transformed into their true form of seven
cursed brothers and she is determined to do everything she can to
help them.

Much like Friday
herself, I learned how a big heart can become a powerful strength,
for yourself and everyone around you. 'Dearest' explored a lot more
of Friday's character and she may have just become my favorite of the
sisters. She isn't a warrior or a hero; she doesn't have any loftier
ambitions than becoming a master seamstress and a nun in the abbey of
the earth goddess. She loves to help and serve people, and I love
that this was used as a character strength. I found her a perfectly
wonderful character because she's sweet and kind, but never
simperingly so. Sometimes the goody-two-shoes characters can be
grating in stories, but Friday is an easily relatable character with
very real emotional struggles.

Like the other books
in the series, 'Dearest' is a love story, and it's split into the
perspectives of the hero and the heroine. Something I have always
appreciated about this series is that their personalities are never
too romanticized. They each have flaws, which they usually overcome
on their own, they clash at times, and they always ALWAYS have their
own struggles and story lines outside of the romance plot. It deepens
the whole experience for me when there's more than just a love story
going on. Throw in a bloodthirsty warmonger or political conspiracy
to go along with it -that's my kind of story.Something I didn't mention in my video review was how much I liked Conrad. This new character's role surprised and intrigued me. I can't wait to see where he leads the story in the future. Could we be headed to an Agrabah-like country soon? Will we have jinn or some Aladdin references? A girl can hope. ;)

There was only one
thing about this book that I was kind of disappointed about. 'Hero'
ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, but 'Dearest' does not advance in
the time line. This book takes us back to Arilland and shows us what
happened there parallel to 'Hero' instead of taking us on to what
happened next. 'Dearest' is a great book and, even though I didn't
see what happened next, it still advanced deeper into the larger
unfolding story, by bringing a couple more connections into play. But
now I have another long wait to find out what happens!

One thing I adore
about the Woodcutter Sister series are all of the tongue-in-cheek
references to the fairy tales of yore. Unlike a true 'retelling' of
these tales -like Ella Enchanted or Princess of the Midnight Ball-
where the story is the tale,
albeit with a new twist, Alethea's use of the classics feels
almost incidental. Yes, you could say that Dearest is a retelling of
The Six Swans and you could say that Enchanted was a retelling of The
Frog Prince, but that would not be doing justice to these books as
they are so much more than that. The Woodcutter series inhabits a
complex world of Fey and magic, gods and prophecies. Fate and
Destiny. And if some of the events that occur happen to tickle a
memory, well, that's just coincidence. Alethea's nods to the classics
know no bounds, but they are sewn into the fabric of the Woodcutter's
reality so gracefully and seamlessly, that it never once distracts
the reader, but becomes more of a private joke between us and the
author. (Case in point, the orphans that Friday takes to looking
after being referred to as 'her Darlings'.)

In 'Dearest', we get
a new flavor of the world than we have in previous books,
specifically with the kind of deities and religious practices that
exist. This combination of gods and Fey is particularly interesting
to me. In my experience, these have always seemed like opposing ideas
in the fantasy genre. You either have gods and religion or fairies
and magic, but Alethea has blended them together with a realistic
flourish. Fey inhabit another realm, where magic abounds, and they
sometimes intermarry with humans and their offspring can be born with
magic. It also seems that the ability to use magic can be a blessing
bestowed upon favored humans by their patron gods and, like the Greek
pantheon, there are plenty to choose from. There is not so much in
this book about the gods and religious practices as to make it dull
or even too different from the previous novels, but just enough to
explain some occurrences in the story and to clue you in that this is
a seriously complex and detailed world spread out before us, and we
still have a lot to learn about it. I, for one, can't wait to learn
more.

Four stars to
Dearest by Alethea Kontis and I would definitely recommend it to
anyone who likes fantasy, especially fairy tale retellings.

In fact,
I am so convinced that you will like this series, I'm doing a
giveaway for the first book, Enchanted.I do
apologize that this will only be open to United States residents, but
if you'd like to enter, just subscribe to my YouTube channel and leave a
comment the YouTube page of the video at the top of this post.

What I'm Watching

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